The Sands of Saturn - Chapter 13

Outside Londinium

“I think we’re about ready,” Ky said to Ursinus and Auspex, as the three looked at a map showing Londinium, with the positions of their legions and the Carthaginians mapped out.

“So, we wait for Carus to take the wall, and then we attack? What happens if his men can’t take it?”

“Actually, no. The wall isn’t the target. The gate is.”

“What?” Ursinus said.

“We moved siege equipment across from the northern wall and we’ve been focusing our fire on that section. We’ve all but told them that’s where we’re going to attack, so they’ve done the most sensible thing. Stationed most of their men, and what looks like all of their actual soldiers there. The gate and wall around it are being manned mostly by conscripts. In practice, that makes sense. The wall is close to the water and extends into the river. The ground is less solid and won’t work well for ladders, and above the gate is solid, so there isn’t anywhere for soldiers to climb onto and fight their way down. They believe, probably rightly, that we can’t get through the gate. We even proved that when we backed away from our assault on it last month when they tried to rally, instead of trying to force our way through.”

“Was that always the plan?” Auspex asked.

“No, but the plan needs to change. One, we have information that the northern wall has been strengthened and fitted with structures to make attaching ladders to it harder, or at least easier to push over. Two, the shifting of forces to the northern wall has only just happened. It changes the math of what we’re up against. With the forces on the north wall, it would be tough for Carus and the men we have there to break through enough to make our assault successful, especially with going over the wall being harder.”

“If the plan is changing, how will Carus know?” Ursinus asked.

“I’ll be able to tell him. What we need to do is get ready for it. We need to shift troops to be able to throw the bulk of our forces against the gate as soon as it goes up. I want you to leave a few centuries spread thin to make sure no one goes over the wall in the other direction and escapes. Since they won’t do any good inside the city, I want the cavalry to operate as a mobile force to reinforce any part of our thinned-out line that gets assaulted. Once they push the defenders out of the way, Carus and his men will set up a line to keep the gate clear until our men get through. Unlike the last time, I want the Caledonians to push through first. Since Carus will already be there with a base of support to operate from, the Caledonians will be better suited for the street fighting. As they clear areas, I want the legions to push out from the gate, pushing up each avenue. The more Carthaginians we can trap against the wall, the better.”

“If we shift all but a few centuries across from the gate, won’t they see us and shift their troops again?”

“They would, which is why we need to obscure our assault. We still have the design for those smoke pots we used outside of Devnum to stop that first army. I want you to put together a bunch of them now. We should have the supplies on hand, if not, we need to send riders to get what we need quickly. I want to start laying down a thick layer of smoke in front of our line, starting with the north end and going all the way around. It’ll tell them the assault is coming soon, but they know it’s coming eventually, so that doesn’t matter so much. We’ll have to keep the smoke going for days, and I know it’s going to be a bad assignment for whoever you give it to, but it’s important we keep the pots burning until we’ve moved all the troops and begun the attack. I’ve already mapped out the placement of the pots, which should keep the layer of smoke solid enough even if we get some unexpected weather.”

Although he didn’t have satellites to access anymore, Sophus had been able to put together a forecast based on readings taken from the drone flying at its furthest range and what data it could get from Ky’s enhanced senses. It wasn’t a sure-fire forecast, but it was enough for him to feel confident there wasn’t going to be a sudden shift in the weather that would make the smoke ineffective. There were indications that a major system was building and there would be a weather front coming in sometime soon that would hamper the assault, which was one of the reasons Ky ordered the attack to start now.

They were sending the last shipment of soldiers into the city that evening, although Ky wasn’t planning on sending a message with them just in case they got captured. He had other thoughts on how to alert Carus to the change in plans.

***

Devnum

“My lady,” Faenius said, from outside the audience chamber.

She had just finished the last set of audiences for the day, continuing to deal with the growing pains of integrating Romans and Caledonians, with the added burden of problems created by the immigrants, as both the Roman and Caledonians were having issues with the mostly Germanic immigrants who had begun moving to Devnum and other cities looking for work.

“Faenius,” she said, standing from her seat. “I thought you were near Londinium?”

“The Consul asked me to come back and help investigate the destruction of the factory and Hortensius’s injury. Since the factory is a critical part of the war effort, he wanted me to make sure the investigation was thorough and for me to double check our security efforts around the other factories and warehouses.”

Lucilla sat back down and frowned as Faenius approached. Ky had been pretty insistent that the destruction wasn’t caused by saboteurs and was probably an accident, so she couldn’t figure out why he’d sent the head of the praetorians back to supervise the investigation.

“Did he tell you he thought it was sabotage?”

“No, my lady. He said that there had been a fire, Hortensius was injured, and that you had the local commander conducting an investigation of the scene. He wanted me to double-check the investigation and make sure all critical sites were secured, just as I said. Did he not send a messenger ahead of me?”

“He did not. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to question you, I was just surprised to see you. I appreciate you being here and helping with this. Have you made any progress?”

“I have, my lady. I am pretty confident there was no sabotage. My men, both of whom have recovered from their injuries, had done several sweeps of the area and one of the city patrols had made a circuit of the outskirts of the city a little under an hour before the explosion. None of them saw anything out of place. The last shift of workers had left a little before that patrol’s circuit, so the area was all but empty. Your guards also reported seeing no one but Hortensius and the guards assigned to the building just before it caught fire, and no bodies were recovered from the scene. Furthermore, when Hortensius requested the local commander assign guards, he specifically cited how combustible the material he was working on was, which is why he wanted to move it out of the city in the first place. I’m confident that there was no sabotage. This was an accident, although until Hortensius regains consciousness, I’m not sure we’ll be able to say what the accident was.”

Ky had already convinced her that it wasn’t sabotage, which made sending Faenius to her confusing. Maybe he wanted her to have peace of mind or to be sure himself, but either way, no one seemed to think this was sabotage. If she had Faenius here, though, she might as well take advantage of him.

“Fine. Thank you for your thoroughness. While you’re here, I need you to double-check all the security arrangements on the places holding gunpowder and, when it’s rebuilt, the factory. We can all see now how volatile this stuff is and the damage it can cause. While this might not have been caused by saboteurs, it will give anyone paying attention an idea of what can be done. Whatever danger of sabotage there was has now increased exponentially with this accident.”

“At your command,” Faenius said, bowing.

Lucilla frowned as he left. Part of the reason she’d been so hesitant to accept this was just an accident was the extreme measures Hortensius had taken to ensure exactly this circumstance wouldn’t happen. If it was an accident, then all of those precautions had been for naught. It brought into question how they could ever use this stuff safely. Once it was in use, it would have to travel with the legions, where they’d have a lot less control over its storage than in a warehouse, where the barrels could be checked and where open flame near it could be controlled.

Ky seemed convinced this was the thing that would help them defeat the Carthaginians, but she had trouble being as sure.

***

Ériu

Velius looked through the spyglass, as Hortensius had called it, and marveled at the invention. He knew Ky had the ability to see things at extreme distances and while he knew this wasn’t how Ky did it, he imagined this was how the Consul must also feel having this capability. The men cresting the far rise weren’t so clear that he could make out individuals, but he could work out the basic formations and get an idea of the numbers of men he was facing.

He knew most of this from his scouts, who’d been shadowing the Carthaginian army as it began its forward momentum after weeks of inactivity following the Ulaid’s last defeat. Seeing it for himself, and being able to make decisions immediately instead of waiting on messages and scouts to get back to him, would be a huge help in battle.

The manufacturer had apologized for this early crude version and promised there would be better versions as they refined the glass-making technique, but Velius was happy with what he had.

He was less happy with what he saw heading toward him. The army was larger than Llassar had indicated it would be, and the portion of local warriors to Carthaginian phalanxes was larger than he’d indicated too. Waiting for local fighters instead of marching to Emain Macha didn’t make sense, but it looked like that’s exactly what they had done. In comparison, Velius had three weakened legions, since there hadn’t been enough replacements to make up for their losses from the last battle, nor time to train or equip the new recruits they did have.

Although the locals were an x-factor, a larger army worked in Velius’s favor, since they tended to stack deeper than his own formations. The larger force meant there wasn’t going to be an envelopment, or any other tricky maneuvers. Worse, they knew he was there, and were holding on a rise and it didn’t look like they were going to move. It gave them the high ground, but he couldn’t ignore them or leave them at his rear as he marched on the Carthaginian allies.

He still had some surprises for them.

He slid the spyglass back into its case and turned to the other two legates saying, “Move the men forward, with the seventh in the center. Curl the line, but don’t overextend. Most of your legions will be facing locals. They won’t have the discipline to stand firm, but they’re going to press you hard. If they’re anything like the Caledonians, they’re going to be dangerous one-on-one. Remember, unit cohesion will be the thing that saves us. Keep your back centuries ready, listen for the call, and watch for signals from my command.”

Both men saluted and rode off to their forces. Turning to his current cavalry commander, Velius had a moment’s regret. Lartius had been moved to an independent command in charge of a new, entirely horse-mounted force that had remained with the Consul outside of Londinium. For what he wanted, he really needed a more experienced commander than Lartius’s replacement, but he had to use who he had.

“I need you to keep their mounted units hemmed in and the locals from getting around to our flanks. Press hard and then disengage. Remember your training exercises and how maneuverable you are. Use it to your advantage.”

The commander saluted and rode off as well. Velius watched as the legions started forward in a steady line and wished he had been allowed some trebuchets. The enemy was infantry-heavy, which meant they had very few archers, which was good. Already arrows were starting to fall among his men. The casualties were light, but as the attacking force, there wasn’t much he could do to return fire as they marched across open land.

He was proud of his men. They ignored the projectiles and maintained a solid front all the way across, the three legions looking to the untrained eye like a solid wall. Doing this across uneven, rocky ground, was harder than it seemed, but also critical. If one legion, or cohort, or even century, got ahead or behind the rest, it would make gaps in the line, allowing the enemy to push into it and put flanking pressure on the units to either side. This kind of training was why he wasn’t worried about the local fighters on the flanks of the phalanxes as much as he was the Carthaginians in the center.

The arrows slowed and stopped as his men began their climb up the slope. It wasn’t steep, but the Carthaginians still had the high ground, making it harder to get past the long spears stabbing down at them. The men held their shields high, but too many of those spearheads, pointing at a downward angle, stabbed over shields, catching men in the head and face. Legionnaires started to go down in twos and threes, with the rear ranks pressing forward to fill the gaps.

The front made contact and solidified, with the legions beginning to push hard into the phalanxes. The Carthaginian allies were starting to swarm, trying to wrap around their flanks. Aelius was doing well on the right, his outer cohort curling to refuse its flank while maintaining good cohesion with the units next to it. He expected nothing less of Aelius, who’d been a legate almost as long as Velius had been and had been in every major battle with him since this new campaign started. Vibius, who’d spent the last several years on the border, was struggling. He should have had more experience with this style of fighting, but he’d been fighting raiders, not large formations.

A dangerous depression was developing in the center of his outer cohort that, if it continued, would cause the cohort to be split from the rest of his command, where it could be swarmed and that would tear the group of men to pieces.

“Gordianus,” he said to his second in command. “Signal Micon. I need him to swing his mounted units back to hit the left flank hard, right behind where Vibius's units are being engaged. They need to charge and break, and then do it again, until the people hammering that outer cohort back off. He needs to relieve the pressure, and he needs to do it now.”

Gordianus went to find the signalmen who hoisted up the new signaling flags, one of the many changes made by the Consul that they’d adopted. If Micon, the new cavalry commander, was paying attention, it would be easier to see than it would be to hear the horns they’d used before, the sound of which was often drowned out by the sounds of the fighting around them. They’d trained using the signal flags extensively, since its introduction, so they should be able to recognize the signals, if they saw them. That was the part they were having more trouble with, especially with the cavalry, which didn’t grind to a halt when it engaged, but was continually moving.

Seeing the center line solidify, Velius said, “Signal all three legions. Back ranks to begin firing.”

It was time to show the Carthaginians their little surprise. Although it had been long enough since their last battle for word of the arcuballistas to get out, not many Carthaginians survived or remained uncaptured after the battle where the weapon was introduced, and it was uncertain how well word filtered from the forces on Britannia to here.

Although he had his own small force of archers, unless the opposing force was large enough, they were only able to fire before the units engaged. Worse, when he was the attacker, such as he was here, his units would be in range of the enemy’s archers before his archers had the enemy in range. That was, however, standard. Something every military had to deal with for centuries. It’s why, while they had their place on the battlefield, he’d never seen archers turn the tide of battle. They just weren’t effective after the opening phases of the battle. After that, they were basically left with firing on other archers, as his men and the Carthaginians were doing now. With as spread out as the archers were and the indirect nature of their fire, both groups would run out of arrows before either gained an advantage.

The arcuballista had changed all that. Lighter and smaller than the ones his people had used before, with a stronger more durable pull, they could be fired directly and carried by men in the line. Before Ky’s arrival, the legionaries would carry one or two javelins that they could hurl at their opponent before the lines met, in a kind of opening salvo. While this was an advantage to a phalanx, which couldn’t engage until they reached spear range, a legionary was only able to carry one or two of the javelins, and they had a limited amount of range and penetration power. Many ended up bouncing off of shields or armor, or only causing minor damage that didn’t put the enemy out of commission.

During the last battle, they’d given most of their limited quantity of arcuballistas to civilian auxiliaries. The legions had been so thinned out trying to contain the massive army they faced, that they wouldn’t have had the manpower to use them anyway. In the two months that had passed since their defeat of the Carthaginian army and clearing the countryside, the factories had continued to churn out the weapons at a growing pace. Now each legionary was given a weapon, which was light enough to wear clipped to a harness on their back, and rugged enough with the new steel parts to mostly survive any pressing from the men behind them when engaged in battle.

The centuries on the front two lines left theirs strapped, so they had their hands free to move in and relieve their fallen comrades. If the situation was right, however, the centuries deeper in the lines wouldn’t be engaged right away, waiting to be moved in as reinforcements or for orders to spread out or pivot to meet some other threat. If the landscape was right, this allowed the men further back time to unfasten their arcuballista and fire directly at the engaged enemy that was too close for normal archers to do so. If the ground was more or less flat, this wouldn’t work, but if either his force or the enemy had any kind of high ground, it allowed his men to fire into the enemy force. Unlike their old javelins, these bolts had the ability to go through shields and armor with little problem, and a man could carry a lot more of the small bolts the arcuballista fired than they could carry javelins, allowing them dozens of shots each, instead of just two.

Considering the rolling plains of this region, Velius had known the terrain would be right to use this tactic and had prepared the men for it ahead of time. As he watched, the second and third cohorts of Aelius’s legion, and one cohort from the two on the flanks, pulled their weapons and rested them on their shields which made excellent firing platforms for the men, since they were stopped.

At first, the Carthaginians didn’t seem to realize what was happening, as men began falling. They might have thought the Roman archers were firing into them. Although it was dangerous and caused a lot of deaths by friendly fire, it wasn’t unheard of, especially as units were getting overrun or were largely outnumbered. The Carthaginian commander may not have even realized what was happening until his left flank began to waver. Although there were a lot of Carthaginians, enough that even entire cohorts firing away with arcuballista wouldn’t be enough to swing the battle their way, Velius’s battle orders had directed all of the men to fire at only the left flank of the Carthaginian army.

“Signal to hold fire,” Velius said as that side of the line began to waver.

The damage was done and the front centuries were beginning to push past the front rank of Carthaginians. Already, men in the rear of that flank were beginning to rout. Once they did, he needed Aelius on the right to pursue them and the rear cohorts of his legion to extend right, to keep the more intact phalanx in the center and left from extending into the space their comrades vacated.

It worked almost as well as it had in training, with the Carthaginians breaking just as the Roman fire began to sputter to a stop, the men re-slinging their arcuballista, picking up their shields, and beginning to press forward. The Carthaginian left flank took a few steps back and then broke, losing all cohesion.

The problem with a phalanx was that the long spears were only an effective weapon when massed together. A single man with one of the spears facing a man with a shield, nearly as tall as he was, and a gladius was a dead man. While the legionary might have problems with more individualistic warriors, like the Carthaginian allies, those people had already started to break and bend in towards the Carthaginians when they’d been unable to get around the side of Aelius’s forces, caught between the Romans and the Carthaginians. When the more solid Carthaginians began to run, so did their local allies.

The Carthaginians veered further to the right as they ran, away from their allies, creating more space until it suddenly became two separate groups the Romans were facing.

“Signal Aelius, tell him to … never mind,” Velius said.

Seeing the Carthaginians and locals on his side of the line lose all cohesion, Velius knew the ninth legion would have no problem in mopping up the runners, which meant they could spare some men. He was about to order Aelius to break off a cohort and send it back towards the remaining Carthaginians, who were now boxed in on three sides as the seventh and fourth legions began slowly working around its flanks. Aelius had seen it too, however, and as Velius began to give the order, he saw two cohorts held and then turn around, reforming into tightly packed units, marching towards the rear of the Carthaginians.

Their commander must have seen it too, because almost immediately he tried to get his men to begin backing up, withdrawing in good order from the pocket that had begun to close around them. It didn’t work. Either his men were too engaged to obey his orders or too poorly trained to execute them. He only managed to get his men back less than a full body length before Aelius’s two cohorts slammed into his rear. The slaughter was near total, as the Carthaginians refused to give up, choosing to insanely fight to the last man.

Things didn’t go much better for the fleeing men. The cavalry, freed from trying to protect the fourth legions’ left flank, tore after them, riding the running men down with abandon. Some of the enemy, probably the locals more than the regular Carthaginian soldiers, escaped, but it wasn’t more than a handful.

Velius had taken casualties, but not as many as he’d expected and the victory was near as total as any in Roman history. True, it wasn’t up to the scale of some of the Consul’s victories, but he was sent by the gods and Velius was just a soldier.

He still had work ahead of him to clear the island, but this was something to be proud of. He’d eliminated any immediate threat to the Ulaid and completely crushed a foe with minimal causalities.

It had been a good day.